Embracing the Moment, Madison Keys Is Back in the U.S. Open Semifinals

Visits: 2

Madison Keys was part of an all-American women’s semifinals last year at the United States Open. On Wednesday night, she became the only one of last year’s final four to book a return trip, beating Carla Suárez Navarro, 6-4, 6-3, in a quarterfinal.

Keys, 23, has been calm, composed and confident throughout her tournament, and acknowledged she had grown “better managing my emotions once it gets to this part.”

“Knowing that everything is going to be probably more amped up, and not shying away from those but just really being honest about it and talking about it,” she added. “Just, you know, embracing the moment. Just trying to remind myself to actually have fun and enjoy the experience.”

Keys, the No. 14 seed, was able to have more fun against Suárez Navarro after breaking out of an early deadlock. Keys broke Suárez Navarro for the first time in the final game of the first set, striding to her right and ripping a forehand down the line.

Keys found that shot more often in the second set, rattling off five forehand winners to bring her total to eight for the match. With the court playing slower this year, 30th-seeded Suárez Navarro had been able to use her variety and spin to great effect, knocking out sixth-seeded Caroline Garcia and 22nd-seeded Maria Sharapova to reach her second U.S. Open quarterfinal.

She bettered her 2013 quarterfinal showing — when she was blanked, 6-0, 6-0, by Serena Williams on her birthday — but was unable to bait a prudent, patient Keys into enough errors to pull ahead at any point in the match.

Keys, a semifinalist at the French Open in June, has now reached three semifinals in the last five Grand Slam events, more than anyone in the women’s game.

Each time she has had American company in the last four, but never as much as last year’s all-American quartet of Keys, Sloane Stephens, Venus Williams and CoCo Vandeweghe. After beating Vandeweghe in last year’s semifinal, Keys lost to Stephens in the final. Vandeweghe lost in the first round this year, and was followed out by Williams in the third round and Stephens in the quarterfinals.

Keys is not flying the flag alone this year, though: Serena Williams, who missed last year’s event to give birth to her daughter, is in the semifinals.

On Thursday, Keys will face Naomi Osaka, who won, 6-1, 6-1, on Wednesday afternoon over Lesia Tsurenko. It will be Osaka’s first Grand Slam semifinal.

Keys has won all three previous meetings with Osaka, but their first was one of the most dramatic matches in recent tournament history. In a third-round match in 2016, Keys came back from 1-5 down in the third set to beat Osaka in Arthur Ashe Stadium.

“That I think was probably the first time I had been on Ashe and had to learn how to use the crowd,” Keys said of the 2016 match. “It was definitely something that I have learned from, and I have used. I know now, as a home favorite, to let myself let the crowd in and let them help me.”

Novak Djokovic is certainly familiar with the night scene at Ashe, and he followed Keys with a 6-3, 6-4, 6-4 victory over John Millman, the unseeded Australian who had upset No. 2 Roger Federer in the fourth round. Both players seemed to struggle amid more hot and humid conditions in the stadium.

“I was struggling. He was struggling. We were all sweating. Changing a lot of T-shirts, shorts,” Djokovic said. “Just trying to find a way to hang in there.”

Djokovic, the No. 6 seed who won Wimbledon in July, will face No. 21-seeded Kei Nishikori in the semifinals on Friday.

A version of this article appears in print on , on Page B10 of the New York edition with the headline: Calm and Composed, Keys Returns to the Semifinals. Order Reprints | Today’s Paper | Subscribe

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